Zimbabwean cities like Bulawayo are facing urban sprawl as regional African governments commit to decent and affordable houses. Credit: Ignatius Banda

By Ignatius Banda
Bulawayo, ZIMBABWE , Aug 11 2021 (IPS)

Ndaba Dube, a Bulawayo resident, says he built himself a home on a small piece of land after the authorities kept him on the housing waiting list for more than two decades. The land he chose is in an old township established before Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.
“People are building their homes all over the place, and when you ask them, they will tell you council approved it, but I know from my own experience I couldn’t wait any longer,” Dube told IPS.

In the capital city Harare, authorities have recently responded to the practice of residents illegally occupying and building on council land by demolishing the buildings, even in some cases, imposing residential homes. This triggered a national outcry and fear that other municipalities across the country might follow suit.

With the demand for decent and affordable housing increasing in Zimbabwe’s second city, the municipality previously turned to what it called ‘in-fill’ stands, pieces of land that existed as gaps left in old townships, as a solution.

While the city says it has not issued building permits for the past five years, construction of such in-fill stands continues.

The proliferation of building of illegal housing comes at a time UN-Habitat says African governments need to make tough calls to realise the housing-for-all dream.

African finance and housing ministers met in Yaoundé, Cameroon, from June 21 to 24, 2021, where they noted that most African countries are currently facing housing crises driven by high population growth.

Added to that were increased urbanisation, poor urban planning, dysfunctional land markets, rising construction costs, the proliferation of informal settlements, and underdeveloped financial systems, the ministers said

Bulawayo’s urban sprawl has only exposed the extent of the city’s housing crisis, with city officials turning to private landowners and surrounding districts for more land.

While the municipality says it has made efforts to avert congesting urban areas by not issuing permits for in-fill stands, this has not stopped residents such as Dube from constructing their homes in a country where owning a house remains a pipe dream.

“Council recognises that land is inelastic and by all means, urban sprawl needs to be avoided,” said Nesisa Mpofu, Bulawayo municipality spokesperson, in an interview with IPS.

“We do not process individual in-fill stands. It should be noted that no in-fill stands have been processed in the past five years.”

Yet buildings on in-fill stands are sprouting across the city, with some homes being built on wetlands and rocky ground – a practice condemned by city planners.

“If local authorities claim that they are not aware of housing constructions, it may mean they are parallel structures within their system,” said Abigail Siziba. She represents the Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association (BPRA), which lobbies the municipality on residents’ issues.

“A thorough land audit where red flags are attended to is necessary to ensure those involved in illicit land deals face the law so that residents regain trust in the housing system,” she told IPS.

Zimbabwe is one of several countries that signed the Yaoundé Declaration in June, which seeks affordable housing for all. The leaders recognised that to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the African Union’s Agenda 2063, there was a need to accelerate the building of decent, affordable housing.

Zimbabwe’s long-running economic crisis characterised by mass retrenchments and eroded incomes have seen banks suspending housing loans as lenders routinely faced foreclosure and lost their homes.

But the illegal housing constructions have also come at a cost for residents.

Burst sewers have become the order of the day as existing infrastructure has not been upgraded to accommodate the additional houses.

“To be honest, we do not know who approves these homes because ever since these houses were added to our neighbourhood, we are experiencing clogged toilets. Even you report to the municipality nothing happens,” said Mariam Bhebhe, a resident in one of the city’s old townships.

“What we were previously told was that council was not issuing stands, and people were buying the stands from private developers, but it is clear now … this is not a private developer building these houses,” Bhebhe told IPS.

Mpofu insists that the local municipality does not approve of the new buildings.

“Some of these areas would have been left undeveloped when the various suburbs were initially developed, as they were considered difficult areas to develop,” Mpofu told IPS. She added this included rocky terrain, areas that required additional stormwater drains, and that needed deep or special foundations.

Effie Ncube, a community organiser in the city, said the municipality needs to make land allocations transparent if ordinary residents are to benefit from any housing projects.

“There has been a lot of corruption surrounding housing in the city where we have seen multiple allocations of land to individuals simply because they have financial clout,” Ncube told IPS.

“This has led to the exclusion of poor people who cannot raise capital to build their homes. That’s why there are a lot of suspicious housing developments across the city, but no one is being held accountable.”

Early July, the municipality announced its plans to take over part of the land belonging to the country’s largest psychiatric hospital located in the city, citing demand for residential housing, again highlighting the extent of shortage of land in the country’s second-largest metropolis.

The UN-Habitat’s New Urban Agenda for Africa, working with the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and United Cities and Local Government of Africa (UCLGA), says it seeks to support local authorities and government to generate not only the best policy but also to generate data to inform the implementation of SDG 11.

SDG 11 seeks to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe and sustainable.”

According to Oumar Sylla, Africa Regional Director for UN-Habitat, between 800 and 900 million people in Africa currently live in the cities.

UN-Habitat estimates that by 2050, more than half of sub-Sahara Africa’s population will reside in the cities.

The UN agency seeks to reduce what it calls “spatial inequalities” and is “working with cities and municipalities to develop strategies on national urban policy, on housing policy and also, how to embed urbanisation into national development plans.”

Under President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe has established a National Development Strategy for housing that will explore other options for mass housing such as high-rise buildings on the realisation that land is “inelastic,” Mpofu says.

But the country’s economic performance could derail those ambitions.

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A recreation of how New York's Times Square could be transformed as part of the ideas of reversible urbanism which experts are calling for in the wake of the pandemic. CREDIT: PaisajeTransversal.org

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 2 2020 (IPS)

The first priority in the COVID-19 pandemic was to save lives, in an effort to avoid even more devastating economic losses if strict lockdown and isolation were not put in place.

But that priority could be reversed in the wake of the crisis, and lessons that would open up paths for shaping better cities could be discarded.

“The pandemic served to raise awareness of the need to change the urban paradigm,” while at the same time awakening “spontaneous solidarity among networked citizens, many helping neighbours who they previously ignored,” said Carmen Santana, a Chilean city planner who splits her time between Paris and Barcelona, Spain.

Social inequality, already so widespread in Latin America, has been exacerbated now that this region is becoming the epicentre of the pandemic, and is taking its toll in lives."…[T]he greatest contagion has more to do with the flow and circulation of people than with density…Cities that attract many people from many countries, with large-scale global circulation, like London, New York and São Paulo, became hotspots for the pandemic." -- Raquel Rolnik

Also pushing up the death toll is the precarious state of health services, and poor nutrition reflected in undernourishment and in obesity, which was found to increase vulnerability to COVID-19.

The question remains as to whether cities, especially the large metropolises that have suffered the most brutal attack by the new coronavirus, will begin to focus their development on human needs or will continue to follow a dynamic dictated by economic interests that have given rise to dysfunctional systems, according to urban planners that IPS interviewed by phone in different cities.

It is too early to predict what urban transformations will arise, because they depend on how long the isolation and social distancing will last, said Nabil Bonduki, a professor at the University of São Paulo School of Architecture and Urbanism (FAU-USP).

If the epidemic loses momentum or is curbed by a vaccine or drugs in the short term, cities will return to normal with their previous contradictions, he said. But if the current rigid measures against gathering in crowded places in public, or in shows or businesses, are maintained, there will be changes that are still unpredictable, he warned.

“A strong increase in virtual activities is already inevitable, such as business meetings, which have proved to be very productive, remote work and distance learning,” the professor said from São Paulo.

Bonduki, who led the development of São Paulo’s Master Plan as a city councilman in 2013-2014, does not believe there will be a rollback in the search for denser cities, with “occupation of urban voids and underutilised areas, and perhaps larger apartments,” to include office space.

In any case, it is the political powers-that-be that will set the course, although strong pressure from society for greater investment in health and poverty reduction can be expected, he predicted.

His colleague at the FAU-USP, Raquel Rolnik, who served as U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing from 2008 to 2014, rejects the widespread belief in a correlation between urban density and the spread of coronavirus.

“Super-dense metropolises like Singapore, Hong Kong and Seoul have not suffered a catastrophe, but have had a relatively low number of victims. In New York, the district of Manhattan, which is very dense, had no more deaths than Staten Island, which is less densely populated,” she said.

A view of a favela in São Bernardo do Campo, an industrial city near the metropolis of São Paulo in southern Brazil. The idea was that shantytowns in Brazil and other countries of the developing South would be easy prey to the COVID-19 pandemic because of overcrowding, but this has not been the case. There are populous slums in Brazil and other countries that have had few cases .CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

She also pointed out that “in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, there are favelas (shantytowns) that have seen outbreaks of COVID-19 while others have not” – an argument that can help combat the stigma faced by these overcrowded neighbourhoods.

“In Brazil and around the world, you can see that the greatest contagion has more to do with the flow and circulation of people than with density,” Rolnik said from São Paulo.

“Cities that attract many people from many countries, with large-scale global circulation, like London, New York and São Paulo, became hotspots for the pandemic,” she said. To this list can be added Milan or Madrid, in the two countries that were epicentres of the pandemic in Europe.

The simplification of the issue is in the interest of groups that build, for example, high-end condominiums on the outskirts of cities, which try to tempt potential buyers with the benefits of living away from the crowded city and the possibility of telecommuting, she said.

These are the same financial interests that drive “non-resilient” cities, which accumulate problems such as “increasingly expensive and smaller housing” and air pollution from mushrooming numbers of cars, said Santana, who described herself as having “a Chilean soul, a French spirit and a Catalonian heart.”

“Real estate speculators” try to make a parallel between crowds that fuel contagion and urban density, which can actually be “healthy and sensitive”, with more humans and fewer cars, she said from Barcelona, capital of the region of Catalonia and Spain’s second largest city in terms of population.

Vehicles take up 50 to 60 percent of city space, she said.

Urban issues are complex and their solutions are not to be found in “pyramidal and linear thinking, but in circular thinking,” said Santana, a partner in the company Archikubik, which describes itself as an “ecosystem of architecture, urban planning and urban landscape”.

A crowd celebrates during Rio de Janeiro’s last carnival, in one of the last festive gatherings in the world before the coronavirus pandemic. No one knows whether carnival and other mass gatherings will be held in 2021 and the next few years. CREDIT: Fernando Maia | Riotur-Public Photos

Her proposals for redevelopment, which she hopes will be better received in the wake of the pandemic, include green public spaces, productive neighbourhoods that include urban agriculture, places of human dignity with housing and public toilets to serve refugees and the homeless, and the “renaturalisation” of cities.

“Animals reappeared in the cities when the cars stopped moving around, generating a new urban ecology and bringing people closer to nature,” she said.

The pandemic encourages reflection on how to reverse “the physical proximity and social distancing” of many in the city. “What is needed is a reasonable density, dense because of multifunctionality, with housing, work, commerce, recreation, culture, services, all in a local mix,” argued Carlos Moreno, a professor at the University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne.

Moreno, a Colombian-French urbanist and scientist and expert in intelligent cities, technological innovation and complex systems, prefers to describe “reasonable density” as “social intensity” with premises that combine economic, ecological and social dimensions.

We must promote the “urban-human encounter” in which people stop being “socially disconnected digital ghosts,” he said from Paris.

The possible increased use of cars would constitute a “triple blowback”, because they emit pollutants, like nitrogen dioxide and fine particles, which make COVID-19 more lethal. According to several studies, the air inside cars is stale and the vehicle subjects its users to “citizen anonymity,” Moreno said.

The urban space is one of coexistence, that generates bonds, but “the car generates neither economic activity nor social bonds,” reflects selfishness and today does not even represent social status, he asserted.

These are urban issues whose debate should intensify ahead of the 27th World Congress of Architects, which was postponed from this year to Jun. 18-22, 2021, due to the pandemic. It is expected to draw about 15,000 participants in Rio de Janeiro.

Postponing the meeting gives the International Union of Architects more time to organise it and to expand the debates, to include discussions of the effects of coronavirus in cities, said Sergio Magalhães, an architect and urban planner who chairs the Organising Committee.

Rio de Janeiro, named the World Capital of Architecture 2020 by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation), will showcase its nearly five-century-old historic centre, and the impact of the pandemic in a tourist city.

Brazil will also stand out with cities that are badly treated by local and national governments, according to Magalhães, a professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro who is renowned for his role in the upgrading of some 150 of the city’s favelas in the Favela-Bairro (favela-neighbourhood) project in the 1990s.

Brazilian cities are precarious because 80 percent of the homes were built by private individuals themselves, without any financing or support. From 1950 to 2010 about 60 million urban homes were built this way in the country, a popular feat.

Another 40 million will be built by 2030, although the population of the country will barely grow, because the birth rate has declined and families are shrinking, Magalhães explained.

One major problem is urban sprawl, with low density areas that make sanitation and urban services difficult to deliver. The area covered by Rio de Janeiro has grown three times more than the population since 1960, he said.

New construction goes on unabated in central Kashmir’s Shalteng area where people have given up farming and are selling their lands for development. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

By Umar Manzoor Shah
SRINAGAR, India, Oct 29 2017 (IPS)

In central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district, 40-year-old Javaid Ahmad Hurra remembers vividly how his small hamlet used to be lush and green when he was a child. It is now subtly turning into a concrete jungle, with cement structures dominating the scenery.

Walking past new houses under construction, Javaid says the entire place was once filled with vast paddy fields. “Now, residential colonies have been built and no one is sowing crops anymore,” he told IPS."The easiest way to earn money for the farming community in Kashmir is to sell land or convert it into a concrete commercial structure.” --Ghulam Nabi Dar

Javaid is not alone in witnessing ruthless urbanisation in places that used to be the agricultural hubs of India’s northern state, Jammu and Kashmir. According to the state policy document on land use, due to rapid urbanisation and unplanned land use, the landlocked Kashmir Valley is losing a majority of its cultivable lands.

The December 2016 report says that every year, the Kashmir Valley is losing an average of 1,375 hectares of agricultural land due to rapid construction of commercial infrastructure, brick kilns, residential colonies and shopping complexes.

According to the department of agriculture in Kashmir, within the past 16 years, the region has lost 22,000 hectares of agriculture land. The survey conducted by the department reveals that farmland dwindled from 163,000 hectares in 1996 to 141,000 hectares in 2012.

Kashmir is a hilly state and its net area (in the Indian part) is 101,387 sq kms. Its population per the 2011 census is 12.5 million. The forest cover of the state is 20 percent of its total geographical area and the density is 124 people per sq km.

Agriculture plays a prominent role in the economy of this Himalayan region, with around 70 percent of its total population living in rural areas, and who are directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods.

According to Mir Yasir Ahmad, a researcher at the University of Kashmir, the shrinking of agricultural land can be attributed to rapid urbanisation and the unplanned emergence of residential colonies in paddy fields.

“The government isn’t taking any serious measures to preserve the agricultural lands here, due to which the concrete structures are coming up places that used to be vast paddy fields some 10 or 20 years ago,” Ahmad told IPS.

According to the state’s 2016 economic survey, the local production of food grains has not keep pace with demand, and yields of principal crops like rice, maize, and wheat have not grown over the years.

“Moreover, the scope for increasing net area sown is very limited and landholding is shrinking due to a continuous breakdown of the joint family system, growing urbanization and population explosion,” it says.

It concludes by warning that the state is facing a deficit in agricultural production and food grains are being imported from other regions of India.

Javaid Ahmad Hurra at his small orchard in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal area. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

Yasir Ahmad says the situation on the ground is even worse than the government reports describe. He says independent surveys have revealed that the net area sown in Kashmir at present is a mere 7 percent, and the cultivable land in the state has shrunk to 30 percent.

Ghulam Nabi Dar, a farmer from North Kashmir’s Baramulla, told IPS that the basic reason for the shrinking of the agricultural lands in the valley is the desperation of farmers.

“There is no market for the rice crops in Kashmir and the government isn’t providing the irrigation facilities as it should to the farmers. The easiest way to earn money for the farming community in Kashmir is to sell land or convert it into a concrete commercial structure,” Dar said.

According to a recent survey conducted this year by the University of Agricultural Sciences, urbanisation and rapid construction on paddy fields has hit the region’s agriculture sector hard.

The contribution of agriculture to region’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has declined 11 percent in 12 years. The survey reveals that during the fiscal year 2004-5, agriculture contributed 28 percent to Kashmir’s GDP. Now its contribution has dipped to a mere 17 percent.

According to the survey, the conversion of agricultural lands into residential colonies and commercial complexes has resulted in a sharp decline in jobs. The workforce employed in the agriculture sector of Kashmir has declined from 85 percent in 1961 to 28 percent at present.

Javaid Ahmad Hurra, a fruit grower from central Kashmir, says climate change in Kashmir has also had a major impact. He says unseasonable rainfall and belated snowfall has been hitting the sector hard and the people associated with the business have incurred losses every year.

Javaid has a small orchard of two hectares where he grows apples and sells the fruit to dealers. He used to work paddy land, but shifted from agriculture to horticulture in hopes of turning a profit. However, according to Javaid, his earnings have been low over the past five years and he too is planning to sell land to start some other business.

Last year, the Kashmir Valley witnessed a prolonged dry spell during the peak winter months. The level of rivers fell, causing scarcity of water and hydroelectricity in the region.

According to the advocacy group Action Aid’s 2007 report on climate change in Kashmir, average temperatures in the region have shown a rise of 1.45 C., while in the Jammu region, the rise is 2.32 C.

Javaid says this March, unseasonal snowfall caused heavy losses to the farming community of Kashmir, which was already reeling under the crises due to five month long violent protests of 2016 and devastating floods of 2014.

“The farmers are now seeing an easy way to earn money. They sell a hectare of land every year and live a life of comfort. Why would we want to incur losses and gain nothing?” said Javaid.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) is actively pursuing its vision for sustainable agriculture production systems across the globe and focuses on ways to ensure the transition to sustainable practices. The FAO focuses on managing ecological, social and economic risks associated with agricultural sector production systems, including pests, diseases and climate change.

It is also working on identifying and enhancing the role of ecosystem services, particularly in terms of their effects on resource use efficiency and response to risks, as well as their contribution to environmental conservation; and facilitating access to needed information and technologies.

For Ghulam Nabi Dar, a farmer from central Kashmir’s Budgam, still holds out hope the sector can be revived.

“We need a proper market for agriculture and also we need to have a proper irrigation system in place, which at present is missing. If an international agency would come forward and introduce the latest technologies and strategies, the sector would get a new life,” Dar told IPS.

A man stands in the middle of parched paddy land in the northern Kilinochchi District, Sri Lanka. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Manipadma Jena
NEW DELHI/BONN, Oct 18 2016 (IPS)

One of the critical challenges facing the world today is that emerging migration patterns are increasingly rooted in the depletion of natural resources.

Entire populations are being disempowered and uprooted as the land that they rely on for their survival and for their future no longer provides sustenance.

Many people will move within their own region or to nearby cities, driving unplanned urbanisation. Up to 135 million people are at risk of distressed migration as a result of land degradation in the next 30 years, says a United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) vision document.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) along with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change both envision land rehabilitation and restoration as significant actions in development and addressing climate change.

Governments from all over the world are currently meeting in Nairobi in order to agree on the strategic direction of the Desertification Convention. IPS correspondent Manipadma Jena interviewed Monique Barbut, Executive Secretary of the UNCCD, ahead of the ongoing fifteenth session of the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC15) in Nairobi. Excerpts from the interview follow.

Monique Barbut. Photo courtesy of UNCCD.

Q: With as many as 170 countries affected by drought or desertification, how could these factors drive conflicts and forced migrations?

A. Two Somali proverbs, nabadiyocaano meaning ‘peace and milk’ and col iyoabaar which means ‘conflict and drought’, illustrate the strong connection between stability and access to pasture and water. The world’s drought-prone and water scarce regions are often the main sources of refugees.

But neither desertification nor drought on its own causes conflict or forced migration. But they can increase the risk of conflict and intensify ongoing conflicts. Converging factors like political tension, weak institutions, economic marginalisation, lack of social safety nets or group rivalries create the conditions that make people unable to cope. The continuous drought and water scarcity from 2006 to 2010 in Syria is a recent well-known example.

Droughts are natural phenomena, they are not fated to lead to forced migration and conflict. Severe droughts also occur in countries like Australia and the United States, but government intervention has made these experiences bearable.

For poor countries where safety nets do not exist, the intervention of the international community is vital.

In Mali, for example, unpredictable and decreasing rainfall seasons have led to a decline in harvests. More and more herders and farmers’ are moving into cities searching for employment. In Bamako, Mali’s capital, population in just over 20 years has grown from 600,000 to roughly   2 million with living conditions becoming more precarious and insecure. As Lagos fills up with those fleeing desertification in rural northern Nigeria, its population now 10 million. Disillusioned, unemployed youth are easy prey for smugglers, organised drug and crime cartels, even for Boko Haram.

Pastoralists face similar challenges when they are compelled to move beyond their accepted boundaries in search of water and pasture and risk clashing with other populations unwilling to share resources. Clashes between pastoralists and farmer are a serious challenge for governments in Somalia, Chad and Niger.

Q: Which other countries are showing signs of vulnerability to extreme droughts in the near future?

A: Drought occurs in almost every climatic region. With climate change, droughts are expected to spread to new areas and to become more frequent and more intense. The vulnerable regions are Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle-East and North Africa, South-Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Australia, Brazil, India, U.S. and China. In the coming decades, most of the United States, the Mediterranean region, Southwest Asia, Western and Southern Africa and much of Latin America, especially Mexico and Brazil, will face extreme droughts.

The more important question, however, is “who is going to be affected and what can be done about it?” The livelihoods of the poor in developing countries will be the most impacted because they rely heavily on natural resources.  So, more investment is needed to incentivise them to adopt sustainable land management (SLM).

But frankly, the investments we have for land rehabilitation are insufficient. We must also improve land tenure security because farmers with secure ownership are more likely to adopt good practices. Improving access to markets and rural services will create alternative non-farm employment, reducing pressure on land and the impacts of droughts in turn.

Q: A lot now hinges on achieving Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) which requires a paradigm shift from ‘degrade-abandon-migrate’ to ‘protect-sustain-restore’. UNCCD aims to achieve LDN by 2030.  Given the tremendous and diverse pressures on land for economic growth, also from large populations in regions like Africa and Asia, where do you see their achievements in 14 years?

A. We want to move from business as usual to a future where the amount of productive land passing from one generation to the next remains stable.

In the current scenario, large numbers of people and a large share of national economies are tied to the land sector, particularly in the developing countries. So any degradation of the land reduces a country’s productivity. Unsustainable land use practices costs Mali about 8 percent of its gross domestic product, for example.

By 2030, along with a higher world population, a large middle class will emerge, accelerating the demand to draw more from these land-based sectors. For Africa and Asia to bridge these gaps, the farmers need to keep every inch of their land productive. This switch to sustainable land management however needs strong government support – to move farmers to scale up these good practices, to recover degraded lands and to prevent losing the most productive lands to urbanisation.

Reforms would move credit, market access and rural infrastructural development to ignite sustainable growth in agriculture. This is what it will take, to achieve land degradation neutrality by 2030.

The Great Green Wall of the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative that seeks to restore degraded lands and create green jobs in the land-based sectors is a good example of this vision. The Desertification Convention is working with partners around the world to develop initiatives that are linked to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target of achieving land degradation neutrality by 2030.

Q: Which countries are faring better in turning around land degradation and what is the key factor driving this achievement?

A. A 2008 global assessment showed that most of the land restoration since 1983 was in the Sahel zone. But we have seen a rise in global attention to land degradation through diverse initiatives. that include the Conventions on Biological Diversity and Climate Change,the Bonn Challenge on Forest and Landscape Restoration and the New York Declaration on Forests. There are also regional initiatives such as Initiative 20×20 in the Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa’s Great Green Wall and initiative AF100, also in Africa.

Once the SDGs were adopted last year, our ambition for 2016 was to have at least 60 countries committing to set voluntary national targets to achieve land degradation neutrality by 2030. We have surpassed that target. Today, we have more than 100 country commitments.

This achievement is due, in part, to the success of a pilot project that enabled 14 countries to assess and politically communicate the potential returns each would get by reversing land degradation in target areas. Armenia, Belarus and Ethiopia could quantify how they could meet their national obligations under the climate change agreement by pursuing land degradation neutrality.

Some common patterns among the countries that tend to fare better in fighting land degradation and drought (DLDD) is strong government leadership that values the socio-economic benefits accruing to their people and political commitment to make effective policies. They also have active champions of good land use practices which can be NGOs, development and private sector partners as well as small and large farmers.

Q: UNCCD is open to private business funding for projects under LDN. Which type of projects would businesses -for- profit show investment interest?

A. There is a growing appetite in the private sector for sustainable land use projects that can contribute to land degradation neutrality. More industry players have committed to LDN-related initiatives and other environmental targets. Companies committing to reduce the ecological impacts of their commodity supply chains rose from 50 in 2009 to nearly 300 by 2014, Supply Change reported in 2016. Many businesses dealing in agricultural and/or forestry commodities get raw materials from the land, and may be interested in investing in projects that make their supply chains more sustainable.

But there is no dedicated public funding pool investing globally in projects to combat land degradation, and public financing alone is not sufficient to protect our planet’s ecosystems. The private sector needs to step up. This is what created the need and opportunity for a new dedicated funding source –the LDN Fund. It combines public and private capital in support of the SDG target of land degradation neutrality.

The sustainable agriculture, sustainable forestry (including agroforestry), land rehabilitation and conservation, and the ecotourism sectors can support profitable investments. Forestry has attracted 77 percent of all capital raised for LDN investments to date. Agriculture is expected to see the strongest increase in investments and to grow by nearly 350 percent by 2021. It is clear that projects that incorporate at least some component of food and/or timber production are more likely to generate a stable cash flow are more appealing to private investors in LDN.

In the developed countries, many of the conservation activities receiving private investment are backed by government legislation. A strong regulatory framework provides certainty to the market and helps to create end buyers. As a result, the investments attract steady flows of private capital.

Q: Do governments need to put in place smallholder-safeguard mechanisms for private investments in land?

A. Safeguard mechanisms that recognise the land rights of smallholders are vital, even when the farmers have no formal tenure. Smallholdings support billions of livelihoods, which makes these households extremely sensitive to land use change.

In developing countries, government policies designed to attract investment are often biased towards large-scale farming, and hardly offer the protection to smallholders require. Private investors should have their own safeguards but governments have a responsibility to implement and enforce mechanisms to protect smallholders. The LDN Fund is designed to align with progressive global environmental and social standards.

Excerpt:

Construction work on the Chapultepec Intermodal Transfer Station, with the castle in the famous Chapultepec forest in the background. The recurrent complaint of Mexico City residents affected by public works in this city is the lack of consultation, transparency and information. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Sep 23 2016 (IPS)

People living in neighborhoods affected by the expansion of urban construction suffer a “double displacement”, with changes in their habitat and the driving up of prices in the area, in a process in which “we are not taken into account,” said Natalia Lara, a member of an assembly of local residents in the south of Mexico City.

Lara, who is pursuing a master’s degree in public policies at the Latin American School of Social Sciences (Flacso), told IPS that in her neighborhood people are outraged because of the irrational way the construction has been carried out there.

The member of the assembly of local residents of Santa Úrsula Coapa, a lower middle-class neighborhood, complains that urban decision-makers build more houses and buildings but “don’t think about how to provide services. They make arbitrary land-use changes.”

Lara lives near the Mexico City asphalt plant owned by the city’s Ministry of Public Works, which has been operating since 1956 and has become asource of conflict between the residents of the southern neighbourhoods and the administration of leftist Mayor Miguel Mancera of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, which has governed the capital since 1997.“There is clearly a lack of planning and vision, the strategy of only carrying out projects with a strictly economic focus is affecting us.There is no interest in building spaces that help improve community life. We are becoming more isolated, people don’t take their kids to play in parks anymore, but go to shopping centers instead, the fabric of the community breaks down. These are serious problems.” -- Elias García

In mid-2014, Mancera’s government announced its intention to donate the asphalt plant’s land to Mexico City’s Investment Promotion Agency, which would build the Coyoacán Economic and Social Development Area there.

In response, local residents organised and formed, in September of that year, the Coordination of Assemblies of Pedregales, which brings together residents of five neighborhoods in the Coyoacánborough, one of the 16 boroughs into which Mexico City is divided.

But the transfer of ownership of the land took place in December 2014, to create a development area including the construction of an industrial park and residential and office tower blocks.

To appease local residents, Mancera proposed modifying the initial plan and turning the area into an ecological park, despite the fact that the soil is polluted and will take many years to recover.

Last May, the mayor announced the final closure of the asphalt plant and its reconversion into an environmental site, although the decree for the donation to the city investment promotion agency was never revoked, and there is no reconversion plan.

This conflict shows the struggles for the city, for how the public space is defined and used, one of the central topics to be addressed at the Oct. 17-20 third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in Quito, Ecuador.

In the upcoming summit organised by U.N.-Habitat, member states will assume commitments with regard to the right to the city, how to finance the New Urban Agenda that will result from Quito, and sustainable urban development, among other issues.

Cities like the Mexican capital, home to 21 million people, are plagued with similar problems.

Elías García, president of the non-governmental Ecoactivistas, knows this well, having worked for three decades as an environmental activist in the borough of Iztacalco, in the east of the capital.

“There is clearly a lack of planning and vision, the strategy of only carrying out projects with a strictly economic focus is affecting us.There is no interest in building spaces that help improve community life. We are becoming more isolated, people don’t take their kids to play in parks anymore, but go to shopping centers instead, the fabric of the community breaks down. These are serious problems,” he told IPS.

The activist and other local residents have witnessed how in Iztacalco a concert hall, a race track for F1 international motor races, and more recently, a baseball stadium were built one after another.

In the process, some 3,000 trees were cut down and many green spaces and local sports fields disappeared.

The last measure taken was Macera’s 2015 decision to revoke the declaration of the Magdalena Mixhuca sports complex’s environmental value, which had protected the facilities for nine year, in order to build a baseball stadium in its place. Local residents filed an appeal for legal protection, but lost the suit last June.

Luisa Rodríguez, a researcher at the public Doctor José María Luís Mora Research Institute’s Interdisciplinary Center for Metropolitan Studies, told IPS that where people live determines their enjoyment of rights, such as to the city, a clean environment and housing.

“The exercise of citizenship is connected to the idea of the city. When a severely fragmented city is built, based on a model that only benefits the few, participation in social institutions like education and healthcare is only partial. Geographical location determines the exercise of those rights,” she said.

There are a number of open conflicts between organised local communities and the government of Mexico City. One high-profile flashpoint flared up in 2015 when the city government intended to build the Chapultepec Cultural Corridor in the west of the city, next to the woods of the same name, the biggest “green lung” that remains in this polluted megalopolis.

In a public consultation last December, the residents of the Cuauhtémoc borough, where Chapultepec is located, voted against the public-private project, which intended to build an elevated promenade for pedestrians, lined with shops, gardens and trees, above the traffic down below.

Instead, the city government is building an Intermodal Transfer Station (known as CETRAMs) at a cost of 300 million dollars, whose first stage is to be completed in 2018. Besides the transport hub, it will include a 50-floor hotel and a shopping center.

The Economic and Social Development Zones (ZODES), which originally were to be built in five areas in the capital, have apparently failed to improve the quality of urban life.

“In spite of the benefits these micro-cities are supposed to offer, the negative aspects of evicting the people currently living in these areas have not been assessed, and they run counter to the concepts of sustainability and strategic management that the government claims to support,” wrote city planner Daniela Jay in the specialised journal “Arquine”.

The last draft of the final declaration of Habitat III, agreed upon in July, makes no reference to the process of building a city based on inclusion and the active participation of citizens, although it does refer to exercising the right to the city and the importance of such participation.

Activists see both positives and negatives in the approach taken by Habitat III. The conference “will reinforce urban laws that focus on building cities, displacing the perspective of native people and local communities. There is no trend towards inclusion,” said Lara.

Activist García demanded that the local people be heard. “They have to listen to the people who are committed to protecting the environment,” he said.

According to Rodríguez, Habitat III offers an opportunity to address urban emergencies. “There are high expectations for governments to start focusing on building cities thinking about the inhabitants instead of the buildings,” she told IPS.

But with or without the conference, the battles for the city in urban centres like Mexico’s capital will continue.

Shanty town near Cape Town, South Africa. Credit: Chell Hill(CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

By Busani Bafana
LUANDA, Sep 3 2015 (IPS)

Slums are a curse and blessing in fast urbanising Africa. They have challenged Africa’s progress towards better living and working spaces but they also provide shelter for the swelling populations seeking a life in cities.

Rural Africans are pouring into towns and cities in search of jobs and other opportunities, but African cities – 25 of which are among the 100 fastest growing cities in the world – are not delivering the much needed support services, including housing, at the same rate as people are demanding them.

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) projects that nearly 1.3 billion people – more than the current population of China – will be living in cities in Africa in the next 15 years."We must encourage, identify ‎and celebrate the continent. Our schools need to train architects and city planners in no other way than to appreciate and promote African architectural culture" – Tokunbo Omisore, past president of the African Architects Association

Africa’s urbanisation rate of four percent a year is already over-stretching the capacity of its cities to provide adequate shelter, water, sanitation, energy and even food for its growing population.

Safe and resilient cities and human settlements is one of the aims of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be agreed on in New York next month. As the SDGs replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) launched in September 2000, UN-Habitat has largely succeeded in meeting the target of taking 100 million people out of slums by the time the MDGs expired in Asia, China and part of India … but not in Africa.

However, Tokunbo Omisore, past president of the African Architects Association, believes that Africa can solve its slums situation by planning and developing towns and cities that strike a balance in the provision of housing, water sanitation, energy and transport while luring investments to create jobs.

According to Omisore, the problem lies in the fact that so far settlements have been developed for people but not with people, and he asks if Africa wants the humane aspects of its cultural values and heritage reflected in its cities or has to replicate the cities of developed nations to become classified as developed.

“Slums and sprawls demand understanding the reasons and problems resulting in their existence and identifying the class of people living there,” says Omisore.

“African governments focus on the infrastructural development of developed nations without consideration for the human development of our different communities and ensuring creation of employment opportunities which is key to the sustainability of our cities. People make the cities, not the other way around.”

By redefining slums, policy-makers in Africa can work more on understanding the rural-urban links to arrive at African solutions for African problems, he argues, calling for a “campaign of marketing Africa and appreciating what is African.”

Aisa Kirabo Kacyira, Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director of UN-Habitat. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

“We must encourage, identify ‎and celebrate the continent. Our schools need to train architects and city planners in no other way than to appreciate and promote African architectural culture.”

At a time Africa is grappling with the issue of land tenure, particularly in agriculture, limited and often expensive land in urban settlements is posing the question of whether Africa should build up or build across, and there are those who argue that densification is the answer to Africa’s housing woes.

At the 2nd Africa Urban Infrastructure Investment Forum hosted by United Cities and Local Government-Africa (UCLG-A) and the government of Angola in Luanda in April,  Aisa Kirabo Kacyira, Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director of UN-Habitat argued that densification is an avenue for the transformation of Africa and its cities.

“If urbanisation should be possible and if we are going to build landed housing without going up, it simply means it will be expensive, but if we have to densify then we need to go up,” said Kacyira.

“Yes, let us stick to our identity and culture, but let us stick to principles that make economic sense. We are not going to have vibrant cities by running away from the problem and spreading and sprawling.”

Kacyira also argued that by planning, reducing desertification and recycling waste, African cities can help reduce their carbon footprint, a key issue on the post-MDG agenda.

Meanwhile, a Kenya housing project could represent a model for the future of

Housing in Africa. Muungano Wa Wanavijiji, a federation of slum dwellers, has partnered with Shack/Slum Dwellers International to provide decent shelter for people living in slums by creating a low cost three-level house called  ‘The Footprint’, which costs 1,000 dollars.

The project has built 300 houses in two settlements this year. Dwellers pay 20 percent towards the structure and are given support to access a microloan covering 80 percent of the cost.

The UCLG-A network which represents over 1,000 cities in Africa, estimates that Africa needs to mobilise investments of 80 billion dollars a year for upgrading urban infrastructure to meet the needs of urban residents.

Edited by Phil Harris   

Flooding in Nigerian villages is just one of the effects of climate change that the country will have to address in drawing up its “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs) for the U.N. Climate Conference in Paris in December: Credit: Courtesy of NDWPD, 2011

By Ini Ekott
LAGOS, Aug 2 2015 (IPS)

Nigeria seems in no haste to unveil its climate pledge with just four months to go before the U.N. Climate Conference scheduled for December in Paris.

However, unlike Gabon, Morocco, Ethiopia and Kenya – the only African nations yet to submit their commitments – Nigeria has just commissioned a committee of experts to draw up targets and responses for its “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs).

INDCS are the post-2020 climate actions that countries say they will take under a new international agreement to be reached at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris, and to be submitted to the United Nations by September."The whole exercise [of preparing INDCs] will consider some priority sectors, look at the baseline and look at our needs for development and see what we can put on the table that we are going to strive to mitigate in terms of greenhouse gases” – Samuel Adejuwon, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Environment

Ahead of that date, Nigeria says its goals are clear: balancing post-2020 greenhouse gas (GHG) emission cut projections with its development peculiarities, according to Samuel Adejuwon, deputy director of the Federal Ministry of Environment’s Department of Climate Change in Abuja.

Nigeria is Africa’s fourth largest emitter of CO2, and there is no doubt climate change is already a problem it faces.

From the north, encroachment of the Sahara is helping to fuel a bloody insurgency by the jihadist group Boko Haram, as well as resource conflict between farmers and pastoralists in its central region, while the rise in ocean levels and flooding are affecting the south.

In a report issued in October 2014, the Mapelcroft global analytics company said that Nigeria, along with Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India and the Philippines, were the countries facing the greatest risk of climate change-fuelled conflict today.

Nigeria’s hopes for slashing its emission levels as part of its INDCs face several tests.

One is that for an economy almost solely dependent on oil – which accounts for a major portion of its 500 billion dollar gross domestic product (GDP), Africa’s highest – the commitment it takes to Paris will reflect how jettisoning fossil fuel cannot be an urgent priority and why doing so will require significant time and resources.

“The whole exercise will consider some priority sectors, look at the baseline and look at our needs for development and see what we can put on the table that we are going to strive to mitigate in terms of greenhouse gases,” says Adejuwon.

Another test is Nigeria’s energy shortage. The country produces about 4,000 megawatts for 170 million people, leaving much of the population reliant on wood, charcoal and waste to fulfil household energy needs such as cooking, heating and lighting.

In 2014, Nigerians used at least 12 million litres of diesel and petrol every day to drive back-up generators, according to former power Minister Chinedu Nebo. The country’s daily petrol consumption (cars included) stands at about 40 million litres, according to the state oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

Cutting the level of pollution that this consumption causes will require big investments in renewable and cleaner energy, says Professor Olukayode Oladipo, a climate change expert and one of three consultants drawing up the INDCs for the government.

Last year, former finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the country needed 14 billion dollars each year in energy investments and related infrastructure.

Oladipo argues that the key to the issue lies in striking a balance between a future of lower greenhouse emissions and immediate developmental realities.

“Every country is now exploring how to use less energy … in an efficient manner, how to rely on renewable energy sources.” In Nigeria, we are looking at “how to be able to drive our economy through reduced energy consumption without actually reducing the rate at which our economy is growing.”

Last year, minister of power Chinedu Nebo said that while solar panels were welcome for use in shoring up generation in distant communities, the government will deploy coal in addition to the hydro power currently in use.

“There is no doubt that the potential is there. Clean coal technology can give us good electricity and minimum pollution at the same time,” he said.

Insecurity

Oladipo also stresses that besides fuel, Nigeria’s climate plans will focus on agriculture, partly to diversify from oil and also as a response to growing resource conflict.

“We are not saying it is the only determinant of crisis,” he says of climate change stoking conflict over resources, “but at least it is adding to the degree and the frequency of the occurrence of these conflicts.

Apart from Boko Haram activities in the north which have been responsible for at least 20,000 deaths, clashes between pastoralists and farmers over land has killed thousands in Nigeria’s central region in recent years.

In the latest attack in May this year, herdsmen from the Fulani tribe slaughtered at least 96 people in the central state of Benue, Nigeria’s Punch newspaper reported.

The government agrees that climate change is one of the causes of the frequent bloodletting, alongside factors like urbanisation, but not much has been done to address the problem.

Oladipo says he believes that Nigeria’s new leader, Muhammadu Buhari, will do more to address fundamental climate change issues, point out that in his inaugural address on May 29, Buhari pledged to be a more “forceful and constructive player in the global fight against climate change.”

However, Nnimmo Bassey of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation argues that proposals put forward by Nigeria and Africa can barely be achieved if the developed nations – the biggest polluters – fail to act more to meet their commitments and cut down on their emissions.

“Nigeria should insist that industrialised nations cut emissions at source and not place the burden on vulnerable nations,” says Bassey.

Urging action from those nations, including the United States, will form a key element of Nigerian and African INDCs, adds Oladipo.

Edited by Phil Harris    

Children from informal settlements in Pakistan’s most populous city, Karachi, are often sent out with large containers to fetch water from taps outside private homes, set up by wealthier residents as an act of charity. Credit: Zofeen T. Ebrahim/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Jun 25 2015 (IPS)

Over 950 people have perished in just five days. The morgues, already filled to capacity, are piling up with bodies, and in over-crowded hospitals the threat of further deaths hangs in the air.

Pakistan’s port city of Karachi, home to over 23 million people, is gasping in the grip of a dreadful heat wave, the worst the country has experienced since the 1950s, according to the Meteorology Department.

“In all my 25 years of service, I’ve never seen so many dead bodies arriving in such a short time." -- Mohammad Bilal, head of the Edhi Foundation’s morgue
Temperatures rose to 44.8 degrees Celsius on Saturday, Jun. 20, dropped slightly the following day and then shot back up to 45 degrees on Tuesday, Jun. 23 putting millions in this mega-city at risk of heat stroke.

Though the entire southern Sindh Province is affected – recording 1,100 deaths in total – its capital city, Karachi, has been worst hit – particularly due to the ‘urban heat island’ phenomenon, which climatologists say make 45-degree temperatures feel like 50-degree heat.

In this scenario, heat becomes trapped, turning the city into a kind of slow-cooking oven.

Every single resident is feeling the heat, but the majority of those who have succumbed to it come from Karachi’s army of poor, twice cursed by a lack of access to electricity and condemned to live in crowded, informal settlements that offer little respite from the scorching sun.

Already crushed by dismal health indicators, the poor have scant means of avoiding sun exposure, which intensifies their vulnerability.

Anwar Kazmi, spokesperson for the Edhi Foundation, Pakistan’s biggest charity, tells IPS that 50 percent of the dead were picked up from the streets, and likely included beggars, drug users and daily wage labourers with no choice but to defy government advisories to stay indoors until the blaze has passed.

Two days into the crisis, with every free space occupied and corpses arriving by the hundreds, the city’s largest morgue, run by the same charity, began burying bodies that had not been claimed.

“In all my 25 years of service, I’ve never seen so many dead bodies arriving in such a short time,” Mohammad Bilal, who heads the Edhi Foundation’s mortuary, tells IPS.

The government has come under fire for neglecting to sound the alarm in advance. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah issued belated warnings by ordering the closure of schools and government offices.

Hospitals, meanwhile, are groaning under the strain of attempting to treat some 40,000 people across the province suffering from heat exhaustion and dehydration.

Saeed Quraishy, medical superintendent at Karachi’s largest government-run Civil Hospital, says they have stopped all elective admissions in order to focus solely on emergencies cases.

Experts say this highlights, yet again, the country’s utter lack of preparedness for climate-related tragedies.

And as always – as with droughts, floods or any other extreme weather events – the poor are the first to die off in droves.

Energy and poverty

The crisis is shedding light on several converging issues with which Pakistan has been grappling: energy shortages, the disproportionate impact of climate change on the poor and the fallout from rapid urbanisation. In Karachi, the country’s most populous metropolis, these problems are magnified manifold.

Though a census has not been carried out since 1998, NGOs say there are hundreds of millions who live and work on the streets, including beggars, hawkers and manual labourers.

More than 62 percent of the population here lives in informal settlements, with a density of nearly 6,000 people per square kilometre.

Many of them have no access to basic services like water and electricity, both crucial during times of extreme weather. The ‘kunda’ system, in which power is illegally tapped from the electrical mains, is a popular way around the ‘energy apartheid’.

Just this month, the city’s power utility company pulled down 1,500 such illicit ‘connections’.

But even the 46 percent of households across the country that are connected to the national electric grid are not guaranteed an uninterrupted supply. With Pakistan facing a daily energy shortage of close to 4,000 mega watts, power outages of up to 20 hours a day are not unusual.

At such moments, wealthier families can fall back on generators. But for the estimated 91 million people in the country who live on less than two dollars a day, there is no ‘Plan B’ – there is only a battle for survival, which too many in the last week have fought and lost.

For the bottom half of Pakistani society, official notifications on how to beat the heat are simply in one ear and out the other.

Taking lukewarm showers, using rehydration salts or staying indoors are not options for families eking out a living on 1.25 dollars or those who live in informal settlements where hundreds of households must share a single tap.

The government has advised residents of Pakistan’s port city of Karachi to stay indoors until a deadly heat wave passes, but for daily wage labourers this is not an option: no money means no food. Credit: Zofeen T. Ebrahim/IPS

Lashing out at the government’s indifference and belated response to the crisis, Dr. Tasneem Ahsan, former executive director of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), tells IPS that preventive action could have saved countless lives.

“The government should have taken up large spaces like marriage halls and schools and turned them into shelters, supplying electricity and water for people to come and cool down there.”

She also says officials could have parked water bowsers in poorer localities for people to douse themselves, advised the population on appropriate clothing and distributed leaflets on simple ways to keep cool.

The media, too, are at fault, she contends, for reporting the death count like sports scores instead of spreading the word on cost-effective, life-saving tips “like putting a wet towel on the head”.

Government inaction

Intermittent protests against power outages, aimed largely at the city’s main power company, K-Electric, served as a prelude to the present tragedy.

Though the country has an installed electricity capacity of 22,797 MW, production stands at a dismal 16,000 MW. In recent years, electricity demand has risen to 19,000 MW, meaning scores of people are either sharing a single power line or going without energy.

Meanwhile, civil society has been stepping in to fill the void left by the government, with far better results than some official attempts to provide emergency relief.

With most hospitals paralyzed by the number of patients, volunteers like Dr. Tasneem Butt, working the JPMC, have taken matters into their own hands. Using social media as a platform, she has circulated a list of necessary items including 100-200 bed sheets, 500 towels, bottled water, 15-20 slabs of ice and – perhaps most importantly – more volunteers.

“I got them immediately,” she tells IPS. “Now I’ve asked people to hold on to their pledges while I arrange for chillers and air-conditioners.

“The emergency ward is suffocating,” she adds. “It’s not just the patients who need to be kept cool, even the overworked doctors need this basic environment to be able to work optimally.”

Last week, the government of the Sindh Province cancelled leave for medical personnel and brought in additional staff to cope with the deluge of patients, which is expected to increase as devout observers of the Holy Ramadan fast succumb to fatigue and hunger.

The monsoon rains are still some days away, and until they arrive there is no telling how many more people will be moved from the streets into graves.

Interestingly, while other parts of the province have recorded higher temperatures, the deaths have occurred largely in Karachi due to urban congestion and overcrowding, experts say, with the majority of deaths reported in poor localities like Lyari, Malir and Korangi.

The end may be in sight for now, but as climate change becomes more extreme, incidents like these are only going to increase in magnitude and frequency, according to climatologists like Dr. Qamar-Uz-Zaman Chaudhry

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

The sharp contrast between the poorer communities’ shanties and the skyline of the Makati City financial district underscores the huge income gap between the haves and have-nots. The Philippines’ income disparity is one of the biggest in South-east Asia. Credit: IPS

By Beatriz Ciordia
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 17 2015 (IPS)

With cities increasingly in the spotlight on the international stage, urban planning and development has become a critical issue in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

While slums continue to grow in most developing countries, reinforcing other forms of inequality, urban planning requires a shift from viewing urbanisation mainly as a problem to seeing it as a powerful tool for development, according to the 2015 UN-Habitat Global Activities Report.“The U.N. is fundamentally challenged with its construct of one country, one vote, when most of the implementation of sustainable development will fall to the world's 200 or so largest cities." -- Daniel Hoornweg

Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson says cities have the potential to shape the future of humankind and to win the battle for sustainable development.

“Cities are at the forefront of the global battle against climate change,” he said last week at the Mayor’s Forum of the World Cities Summit in New York.

“The way in which cities are planned, run and managed is crucial. The leadership role of mayors and city governments is therefore of fundamental importance,” he added.

In the last two decades, cities and urban centres have become the dominant habitats for humankind and the engine-rooms of human development as a whole. For the first time in history in 2008, the urban population outnumbered the rural population, marking the beginning of a new “urban millennium”.

Today, more than half of humanity lives in cities. By 2050, around 70 percent of the world’s population will live in urban areas, according to the report.

Poverty, which remains the greatest global challenge facing the world today, is increasingly concentrated in urban areas.

As Eliasson highlighted, close to one billion of the world’s urban dwellers still live in dire, even life-threatening, slum conditions – and this figure is projected to rise to 1.6 billion by 2030. Some 2.5 billion people in the world lack access to improved sanitation, not least in urban areas.

Daniel Hoornweg, a former World Bank specialist on cities and climate change, says that the lion’s share of implementation will fall to cities regardless of what countries agree in terms of the SDGs.

“National governments, when negotiating, need to fully reflect local government capacities as the ‘doing arm of government’. This is less about urban planning than it is about empowerment and assistance to local governments,” he told IPS.

As stated in the 2014 Revision of the World Urbanization Prospects, urbanisation is integrally connected to the three pillars of sustainable development: economic development, social development and environmental protection.

However, international governments and organisations have not respected this triumvirate, going against the 11^th SDG, which aims to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

“Urban planning is still too focused on economic efficiency and growth, leaving aside the goal of upgrading sustainable lifestyles,” Leida Rijnhout, director of Global Policies and Sustainability of the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), told IPS.

“Facilitating a well-functioning and affordable public transport system can be more important than building highways for an increasing number of private cars. Also, preserving local shops (SMEs) and not ‘killing them’ by building big shopping malls is another example of urban sustainability that provides social cohesion,” she added.

The equation is clear: if well managed, cities offer a unique opportunity for economic development and growth, but at the same time, they can expand the access to basic services, including health care and education, for millions of people.

In other words: providing universal access to electricity, water, sanitation, housing and public transportation for a densely settled urban population promotes economically, socially and environmentally sustainable societies.

However, this goal can only be achieved if U.N. member states and U.N. agencies come together to promote sustainable urbanisation and if there’s a connection between the power dynamics of local governments and national governments.

“The U.N. is fundamentally challenged with its construct of one country, one vote, when most of the implementation of sustainable development will fall to the world’s 200 or so largest cities,” Hoornweg told IPS.

According to Hoornweg, the U.N. needs to be reformed in order to get a fair representation of large cities on the international stage – “Countries like Fiji and Vanuatu cannot have more influence than Shanghai and Sao Paulo.”

He says an alternative approach could be establishing a “pragmatism council” of the world’s largest cities –say those that are expected to have five million or more residents by 2050 (around 120 cities).

“Having this council negotiate things like SDGs would not yield binding accords but they would yield a very powerful ‘shadow accord’ that no country could easily ignore,” he told IPS.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Sanitation infrastructure in India’s sprawling slums belies the official story that the country is well on its way to providing universal access to safe, clean drinking water. Credit: Malini Shankar/IPS

By Gloria Schiavi
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 23 2014 (IPS)

People living in cities already outnumber those in rural areas and the trend does not appear to be reversing, according to UN-Habitat, the Nairobi-based agency for human settlements, which has warned that planning is crucial to achieve sustainable urban growth.

“In the hierarchy of the ideas, first comes the urban design and then all other things,” Joan Clos, executive director of UN-Habitat, told IPS while he was in New York for a preparatory meeting of Habitat III, the world conference on sustainable urban development that will take place in 2016."In the past urbanisation was a slow-cooking dish rather than a fast food thing." -- Joan Clos, executive director of UN-Habitat

“Urbanisation, plotting, building – in this order,” he said, explaining that in many cities the order is reversed and it is difficult to solve the problems afterwards.

According to the U.N. Department for Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), urban population grew from 746 million in 1950 to 3.9 billion in 2014 and is expected to surpass six billion by 2045. Today there are 28 mega-cities worldwide and by 2030 at least 10 million people will live in 41 mega-cities.

A U.N. report shows that urban settlements are facing unprecedented demographic, environmental, economic, social and spatial challenges, and spontaneous urbanisation often results in slums.

Although the proportion of the urban population living in slums has decreased over the years, and one of the Millennium Development Goals achieved its aim of improving the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers, the absolute number has continued to grow, due in part to the fast pace of urbanisation.

The same report estimates that the number of urban residents living in slum conditions was 863 million in 2012, compared to 760 million in 2000.

“In the past urbanisation was a slow-cooking dish rather than a fast food thing,” Clos said.

“We have seen it in multiple cases that spontaneous urbanisation doesn’t take care for the public space and its relationship with the buildable plots, which is the essence of the art of building cities,” he added.

The former mayor of Barcelona for two mandates, Clos thinks that a vision is needed to build cities. And when he says building cities, he does not mean building buildings, but building healthy, sustainable communities.

Relinda Sosa is the president of National Confederation of Women Organised for Life and Integrated Development in Peru, an association with 120,000 grassroots members who work on issues directly affecting their own communities to make them more inclusive, safe and resilient. They run a number of public kitchens to ensure food security, map the city to identify issues that may create problems, and work on disaster prevention.

“Due to the configuration of the society, women are the ones who spend most time with the families and in the community, therefore they know it better than men who often only sleep in the area and then go to work far away,” Sosa told IPS.

“Despite their position, though, and due to the macho culture that exists in Latin America, women are often invisible,” she added. “This is why we are working to ensure they are involved in the planning process, because of the data and knowledge they have.”

The link between the public and elected leaders is crucial, and Sosa’s organisation tries to bring them together through the participation of grassroots women.

Carmen Griffiths, a leader of GROOTS Jamaica, an organisation that is part of the same network as Sosa’s, told IPS, “When access to basic services is lacking, women are the ones who have to face these situations first.

“We look at settlements patterns in the cities, we talk about densification in the city, people living in the periphery, in informal settlements, in housing that is not regular, have no water, no sanitation in some cases, without proper electricity. We talk about what causes violence to women in the city,” Griffiths added.

As the chief of UN-Habitat told IPS, it is crucial to protect public space, possibly at a ratio of 50 percent to the buildable plots, as well as public ownership of building plans. The local government has to ensure that services exist in the public space, something that does not happen in a slum situation, where there is no regulation or investment by the public.

Griffiths meets every month with the women in her organisation: they share their issues and needs and ensure they are raised with local authorities.

“Sometimes it happens that you find good politicians, some other times they just want a vote and don’t interface with the people at all,” she added.

Griffiths also sits on the advisory board of UN-Habitat, to voice the needs of her people at the global level and then bring the knowledge back to the communities, she explained.

These battles are bringing some results, especially in the urban environment. Sosa said that women are slowly achieving wider participation, while in rural areas the mindset is still very conservative.

About the relationship between urban and rural areas, Maruxa Cardama, executive project coordinator at Communitas, Coalition for Sustainable Cities & Regions, told IPS that an inclusive plan is needed.

Cities are dependent on the natural resources that rural areas provide, including agriculture, so urban planning should not stop where high rise buildings end, she explained, adding that this would also ensure rural areas are provided with the necessary services and are not isolated.

Although they will not be finalised until 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) currently include a standalone goal dedicated to making “cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

In 2009, nearly 5,000 Kibera residents were relocated to the KENSUP Soweto East settlement, pictured here. However many say the housing project has become a slum. Credit: George Kebaso/IPS

By Adam Bemma
NAIROBI, Jul 22 2014 (IPS)

At the eastern edge of Nairobi’s Kibera slum, children gather with large yellow jerry cans to collect water dripping out of an exposed pipe. The high-rise grey and beige Soweto East settlement towers above them. A girl lifts the can on top of her head and returns to her family’s third floor apartment.

Inside, 49-year-old mother Hilda Olali is sweeping the floor. She’s had enough. Her family of five has no running water or electricity in their two bedroom apartment.The rancid smell of refuse wafts into the apartment throughout the day. Hilda Olali's considering a move back to the slum, turning in her family's brick and mortar home for her old mud and tin shack.

“When we first arrived we really enjoyed life. But now it’s hard because we don’t have water for weeks. This forces me to go and buy water outside. I can’t afford that,” she told IPS.

Outside her kitchen window, garbage has been accumulating over the last six months. The rancid smell of refuse wafts into the apartment throughout the day. She’s considering a move back to the slum, turning in her family’s brick and mortar home for her old mud and tin shack.

“In the slum things were cheap. When we came here they took us as if we were people who could afford expensive things,” she added.

It’s been 12 years since the Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme, or KENSUP, launched its pilot project in Kibera. Many residents feel the government and United Nations’ Human Settlements Programme, or U.N. Habitat, have abandoned them soon after its doors opened.

In 2009, nearly 5,000 Kibera residents were relocated to the KENSUP Soweto East settlement. The 17 five-storey buildings are home to around 1,800 families. Population estimates in Kibera range from 800,000 to 1.2 million, making it one of Africa’s largest slums.

“We were told to move and it’s like we were forced. They [KENSUP] were carrying everything for us. Transport was arranged by them. I had seven rooms in the slum. Here I only have three,” Olali said.

According to the U.N., cities are now home to half of the global population. Forty percent of Kenya’s 43 million people are living in urban areas. More than 70 percent of Nairobi’s 3.1 million people live in 200 informal settlements, or slums. A lack of affordable housing in the city makes Kibera an attractive place to settle.

Godwin Oyindo, 24, is a recent university graduate and a close friend of Olali’s son. He grew up in Kibera and was hopeful this housing project would change the lives of all its residents.

“This slum upgrading project was established to address a few things in Kibera, the security of tenure, the housing of people, accessibility to services, and also to generate economic activities. One of their main objectives is a slum free society,” Oyindo told IPS.

Back in 2003, the government of Kenya and U.N. Habitat began working together to improve housing and quality of living for residents not only in Nairobi, but in Mombasa, Mavoko Kisumu and Thika. KENSUP is mandated to improve living standards for 5.3 million urban slum dwellers by 2020.

U.N. Habitat came on board with its Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme, working alongside KENSUP providing expertise and technical advice. The officer in charge of this department, Joshua Mulandi Maviti, said objectives have been met in all projects.

“Kibera was the focus of our work with the ministry,” Maviti told IPS. “But we also coordinated infrastructure, land tenure, water and sanitation projects across Kenya, in Mombasa, Kisumu and Mavoko.”

Justus Ongera, 24, shares a room with his younger sister in a two bedroom apartment in the Soweto East settlement. The two share the apartment with another family. Ongera believes he may need to instruct residents on how to improve sanitation.

“When we first moved in the garbage outside was cleared every two weeks. Now it’s been rotting there under the sun for six months,” he told IPS. “This is a serious health hazard. Something needs to be done.”

Due to the 12 years which have elapsed since the contract began, U.N. Habitat ended its collaboration with KENSUP once contracts expired, according to Maviti. But he assures this doesn’t mean it’s the end of the relationship.

“The government of Kenya and the ministry haven’t engaged with us on the issues faced by Soweto East residents. We need to hear from them officially to be able to help,” Maviti said.

Olali is now weighing her options, whether or not she should move her three kids out of this apartment project and back into the slum. The fact that she has no running water forces to make a long trek through Kibera to visit the public toilet. This costs her five Kenya shillings each time.

“It all adds up, costing me even more money,” Olali said. “Some women didn’t even know how to flush a toilet before moving in, but now they do. We’ve all experienced a lot living here.”

Kenya’s Ministry of Land, Housing and Urban Development, along with KENSUP, turned down requests to be interviewed for this story.

Hopes are high that the 10^th Asia-Europe Meeting – or ASEM summit – to be held in Milan on October 16-17 will confirm the credibility and relevance of Asia-Europe relations in the 21^st century.

ASEM has certainly survived many storms and upheavals since it was initiated in Bangkok in 1996 and now, with ASEM’s 20^th anniversary in 2016 approaching rapidly, the challenge is not only to guarantee ASEM’s survival but also to ensure that the Asia-Europe partnership flourishes and thrives.

Talk about renewal and revival is encouraging as Asians and Europeans seek to inject fresh dynamism into ASEM through changed formats and a stronger focus on content to bring it into the 21^st century.

ASEM’s future hinges not only on whether governments are ready to pay as much attention to ASEM and devote as much time and energy to their partnership as they did in the early years but also on closer engagement between Asian and European business leaders, civil society representatives and enhanced people-to-people contacts.  An ASEM business summit and peoples’ forum will be held in parallel with the leaders’ meeting.

Shada Islam. Courtesy of Twitter

Significantly, the theme of the Milan summit – “Responsible Partnership for Sustainable Growth and Security” – allows for a discussion not only of ongoing political strains and tensions in Asia and in Europe’s eastern neighbourhood, but also of crucial questions linked to food, water and energy security.

Engagement between the two regions has been increasing over the years, both within and outside ASEM. Five of the 51 (set to rise to 52 with Croatia joining in October) ASEM partners – China, Japan, India, South Korea and Russia – are the European Union’s strategic partners. Turkey and Kazakhstan have formally voiced interest in joining ASEM, although approval of their applications will take time.  There is now a stronger E.U.-Asian conversation on trade, business, security and culture.

Exports to Asia and investments in the region are pivotal in ensuring a sustainable European economic recovery while the European Union single market attracts goods, investments and people from across the globe, helping Asian governments to maintain growth and development.  European technology is in much demand across the region.

Not surprisingly, Asia-Europe economic interdependence has grown.  With total Asia-Europe trade in 2012 estimated at 1.37 trillion euros, Asia has become the European Union’s main trading partner, accounting for one-third of total trade.  More than one-quarter of European outward investments head for Asia while Asia’s emerging global champions are seeking out business deals in Europe.  The increased connectivity is reflected in the mutual Asia-Europe quest to negotiate free trade agreements and investment accords. For many in Asia, the European Union is the prime partner for dealing with non-traditional security dilemmas, including food, water and energy security as well as climate change. Europeans, too, are becoming more aware of the global implications of instability in Asia.

ASEM’s connectivity credentials go beyond trade and economics.  In addition to the strategic partnerships mentioned above, Asia and Europe are linked through an array of cooperation accords. Discussions on climate change, pandemics, illegal immigration, maritime security, urbanisation and green growth, among others, are frequent between multiple government ministries and agencies in both regions, reflecting a growing recognition that 21^st century challenges can only be tackled through improved global governance and, failing that, through “patchwork governance” involving cross-border and cross-regional alliances.

Discussions on security issues are an important part of the political pillar in ASEM, with leaders exchanging views on regional and global flashpoints.  Given current tensions over conflicting territorial claims in the East and South China Seas, this year’s debate should be particularly important.

Asian views of Europe’s security role are changing. Unease about the dangerous political and security fault lines that run across the region and the lack of a strong security architecture has prompted many in Asia to take a closer look at Europe’s experience in ensuring peace, easing tensions and handling conflicts.  As Asia grapples with historical animosities and unresolved conflicts, earlier scepticism about Europe’s security credentials are giving way to recognition of Europe’s “soft power” in peace-making and reconciliation, crisis management, conflict resolution and preventive diplomacy, human rights, the promotion of democracy and the rule of law.

In addition, for many in Asia, the European Union is the prime partner for dealing with non-traditional security dilemmas, including food, water and energy security as well as climate change. Europeans too are becoming more aware of the global implications of instability in Asia, not least as regards maritime security.

Meanwhile, over the years, ASEM meetings have become more formal, ritualistic and long drawn-out, with endless preparatory discussions and the negotiation of long texts by “senior officials” or bureaucrats. Instead of engaging in direct conversation, ministers and leaders read out well-prepared statements.  Having embarked on a search to bring back the informality and excitement of the first few ASEM meetings, Asian and European foreign ministers successfully tested out new working methods at their meeting in Delhi last November.

The new formula, to be tried out in Milan, includes the organisation of a “retreat” session during which leaders will be able to have a free-flowing discussion on regional and international issues with less structure and fewer people in the room.  Instead of spending endless hours negotiating texts, leaders will focus on a substantive discussion of issues.  The final statement will be drafted and issued in the name of the “chair” who will consult partners but will be responsible for the final wording.  There are indications that the chair’s statements and other documents issued at the end of ASEM meetings will be short, simple and to-the-point.

ASEM also needs a content update.  True, ASEM summits which are held every two years, deal with many worthy issues, including economic growth, regional and global tensions, climate change and the like. It is also true that Asian and European ministers meet even more frequently to discuss questions like education, labour reform, inter-faith relations and river management.

This is worthy and significant – but also too much.  ASEM needs a sharper focus on growth and jobs, combating extremism and tackling hard and soft security issues. Women in both Asia and Europe face many societal and economic challenges.  Freedom of expression is under attack in both regions.

ASEM partners also face the uphill task of securing stronger public understanding, awareness and support for the Asia-Europe partnership, especially in the run up to the 20^th anniversary summit in 2016.

The 21^st century requires countries and peoples – whether they are like-minded or not – to work together in order to ensure better global governance in a still-chaotic multipolar world.

As they grapple with their economic, political and security dilemmas – and despite their many disagreements – Asia and Europe are drawing closer together.  If ASEM reform is implemented as planned, 2016 could become an important milestone in a reinvigorated Asia-Europe partnership, a compelling necessity in the 21^st century.

Shada Islam is responsible for policy oversight of Friends of Europe’s initiatives, activities and publications. She has special responsibility for the Asia Programme and for the Development Policy Forum. She is the former Europe correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review and has previously worked on Asian issues at the European Policy Centre. 

A Syrian pastry chef in Little Syria. Photo courtesy of Save Washington Street.

By Sudeshna Chowdhury
NEW YORK, Jun 20 2013 (IPS)

A brick red, six-story tenement house, St. George Melkite Church and a community house in desperate need of repair are nearly all that remain of a once thriving Arab-American community in downtown New York City.

High-rise buildings now populate the area of Lower Manhattan formerly called Little Syria that has been a gradual casualty of industrialisation and urbanisation and which Arab-American youth are fighting to keep alive.

With the church declared an official landmark in 2009, one organisation, Save Washington Street, hopes to preserve other remnants of this neighbourhood. Its primary goal is to achieve landmark designation for the community centre, which used to provide immigrants with resources ranging from jobs to glass bottles of milk, said Carl Antoun Houck, director of Save Washington Street."The Syrian refugees and their history are...not so new to this country."
-- Carl Antoun Houck

Norah Arafeh, an undergraduate student at University of California Berkeley, serves as the outreach director of Save Washington Street and was drawn to the cause by her Syrian roots.

Arafeh’s father was raised in a neighbourhood of Damascus, Syria and came to the United States when he was 17, said Arafeh, who joined the Little Syria campaign almost two years ago and now reaches out to various groups to solicit support for the neighbourhood.

“The importance of preserving history – both in the U.S. and in Syria, in this case – cannot be understated,” Arafeh said.

For many Arab Americans today, Little Syria was where ancestors arrived in pursuit of the American dream. Among them were Houck’s mother’s family, who emigrated from Lebanon.

Preserving the past is a huge part of every Arab American, Houck said, raising his voice amid the din of construction work in the area.

With the Obama administration considering resettling of hundreds of Syrian refugees in the United States, Houck pointed out, “The Syrian refugees and their history are, after all, not so new to this country.”

A lost melting pot

Little Syria once extended from what was the World Trade Centre down to Battery Park and to the west of Broadway behind Trinity Church to West Street, according to Joe Svehlak, an urban historian and preservationist.

“It was a melting pot with 27 different nationalities living together in harmony and peace. They were Syrians, Lebanese, Slovaks, Germans, Irish,” he said.

In Little Syria’s heyday, from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s, it wasn’t surprising to find a German living next to a Lebanese, who would be living adjacent to a Syrian, with all of them trusting one another, Svehlak added.

Peddling was the main occupation of the immigrants living in the area, which was comprised of merchant houses, restaurants, cafes and factories making the linens from which immigrants earned livelihoods, said Todd Fine, a historical and strategic adviser for Save Washington Street.

While economic factors were the main impetus for emigration from Greater Syria, many others also left to escape persecution and conscription in the Ottoman army, according to historians.

Those who lived in the area, Svehlak said, actually referred to it as the “Mother Colony”, while outsiders from other parts of the city called it Little Syria, dubbing it thus because the majority of residents were Arab Christians from Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Jordan, as well as parts of Iraq, which was once part of Greater Syria, said Fine.

The decline begins

In the early 1900s, some immigrants in Little Syria moved to other parts of the city, primarily Brooklyn, where the burgeoning population could have more space, and real estate prices were reasonable.

Still, it remained a robust community until the 1940s, according to Svehlak.

It was when families were told to move their homes to accommodate the entrance to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, built in 1948, that dealt a huge blow to Little Syria, and a majority of the neighbourhood was destroyed, according to Fine.

Many families temporarily vacated the area after the attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, and some of those who remained were asked to leave during the subsequent reconstruction of the World Trade Centre.

At that point Edward Metropolis, 52, had to leave his studio apartment, where he had lived his entire life and which is part of the last standing tenement in the area.

“I came back after four months, and some of the people who left never came back,” he said.

Fine said that in a way, the years after 9/11 encouraged construction and thus contributed to the destruction of the history of the area, said Fine.

“Rampant development did the rest,” Svehlak concluded.

An ignored past

With Jun. 20 observed as World Refugee Day, the history of a community who immigrated here more than a century ago is largely forgotten by New Yorkers, according to experts.

“It’s a tragedy,” lamented Fine. “While everybody knows about Chinatown and Little Italy, everybody seems to have forgotten about Little Syria.”

For Sarab Al-Jijakli, a Syrian-American who has been involved in raising awareness and humanitarian aid since the beginning of the Syrian revolution in March 2011, the neighbourhood is more than just a piece of history.

“It helps to build confidence regarding our role and presence in the American narrative – our history in this country, which did not begin on 9/11,” he said. “Little Syria helps reclaim this narrative from Islamophobes and bigots who wish to bury it.”

History links generations of immigrants and teaches people about Arabs’ contributions in building America, Al-Jijakli added, even as the existence of Arab history in the city has been overshadowed by the current unrest in the Middle East, especially in Syria.

According to the United Nations, close to 93,000 people were killed in fighting between the government and rebel forces in Syria between March 2011 and April 2013.

Arafeh believed that in the United States, the importance of preserving Arab American history has been trivialised.

“The demolition and raiding of major cities of history denies future generations of the privilege and historical heritage that is their patrimony,” she concluded.

Extreme heat, flooding and water and food shortages will rock South Asia and Africa by 2030 and render large sections of cities inhabitable, if the world continues to burn huge amounts of coal, oil and gas, the World Bank is warning.

“Turn Down the Heat: Climate Extremes, Regional Impacts and the Case for Resilience“, a new report commissioned by the World Bank and released Wednesday, analysed the expected effects on South Asia and Africa if global temperatures increase by two and four degrees Celsius.

The report showed that a global temperature rise of two degrees Celsius will have a wide range of dangerous effects, including a loss of 40 to 80 percent of cropland in Africa and rising sea levels that will destroy significant parts of many coastal cities in South Asia.

“If the world warms by two degrees Celsius – warming which may be reached in 20 to 30 years – that will cause widespread food shortages, unprecedented heat waves, and more intense cyclones,” said World Bank President Jim Yong Kim.

He pointed out that such change could “greatly harm the lives and the hopes of individuals and families who have had little hand in raising the earth’s temperature”.

The burning of carbon-based fuels has increased the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere by 40 percent. CO2 and water vapour in the atmosphere are crucial in retaining some of the sun’s heat energy; without them, the earth’s atmosphere would be more like the moon’s: 100 degrees Celsius in the daytime and -150 degrees at night.

Adding 40 percent more CO2, however, has increased the amount of heat energy the Earth absorbs, with more than 93 percent of it warming the oceans.

Bleak findings

One of the shocking findings in the new study is the enormous impact a two-degree rise will have on the urban poor, said Rachel Kyte, the vice president for sustainable development at the World Bank.

Urbanisation is increasing rapidly, especially in the developing world, with many more people living in slums and informal settlements, Kyte told IPS from London.

The report painted a bleak picture for many cities.

As climate change disrupts rainfall patterns and generates more extreme weather in the coming decades, leading to poor crop yields, rural populations will flood cities. Escalating numbers of urban poor will suffer, with temperatures magnified by the “heat island effect” of the constructed urban environments.

Safe drinking water will also be harder to find, especially after floods, contributing to greater water-borne diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea.

Coastal regions like Bangladesh and India’s two largest coastal cities, Kolkata and Mumbai, will face extreme river floods, more intense tropical cyclones, rising sea levels and very high temperatures.

“Huge numbers of urban poor will be exposed in many coastal cities,” Kyte said.

Meanwhile, a sea level rise of 30 centimetres, possible by 2040, will result in massive flooding in cities and inundate low-lying cropland with saltwater, which is corrosive to crops. Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, a global rice producer, is particularly vulnerable to sea level rise, and a 30-centimetre rise there could result in the loss of about 11 percent of crop production, the report found.

“We face a huge challenge over the next 20 years to…redesign our cities to protect them from climate change,” Kyte predicted, even as cities already face a huge infrastructure investment gap.

One trillion dollars a year needed to be invested every year by 2020 by some estimates, Kyte said, adding that “to build climate resilience into cities will take another 300 to 500 million dollars a year”.

A lack of water will be a problem in other regions. The projected loss of snowmelt from the Himalayas will reduce the flow of water into the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra river basins, which altogether threaten to leave hundreds of millions of people without enough water, food or access to reliable energy, the report said.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, by the decades of 2030 or 2040, drought mixed with destructive flooding will contribute to farmers’ losing 40 to 80 percent of cropland used for growing maize, millet and sorghum.

And while carbon emissions have already increased oceans’ acidity by 30 percent, by 2040, oceans will be too acidic for many coral reefs to survive. The death of coral reefs results in major loss of fish habitats as well as protection against storms.

“That will have significant consequences for ocean fish catches, which are already in decline today,” said Bill Hare of Climate Analytics and who was the lead author of the study.

Policy recommendations

The report is a science-based guide for the World Bank and governments for what these regions will face over the next 20 to 30 years, said Hare.

“Much of this can be avoided, and it will cost far less with urgent action to reduce carbon emissions,” Hare told IPS.

In a speech at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate Wednesday, U.S. President Barack Obama called climate change the “global threat of our time” and promised the United States would do far more to reduce emissions. A detailed announcement is expected next week.

Last week, the United States and China agreed to reduce phase out HFCs, a greenhouse gas used in air conditioners. China has also created a series of carbon trading regions to cut emissions.

“These are small positive signs that need to pickup momentum,” Hare said.

At the UN Forum of Mayors on Crime Prevention and Security in Urban Settings, from left to right: Dong Min Ki, Jonathan Lucas, Cecilia Andersson, Martin Xaba, Bilal S. Hamad, and Marin Casimir Ilboudo. Credit: Silvia Giannelli/IPS

By Silvia Giannelli
TURIN, Italy, May 21 2013 (IPS)

As people around the world continue to migrate into cities, swelling urban populations, they have sparked growth in another area: crime and security issues.

“Big cities are…where the greatest opportunities are, but also where more criticalities concentrate,” said Piero Fassino, mayor of Turin, Italy, at the plenary session of the Forum of Mayors on Crime Prevention and Security in Urban Settings, held in Turin from May 20 to 21.

“While the quality of services to citizens are usually higher in those centres, they also present more problems of social alienation, youth unrest and crime,” Fassino added."[Cities] present more problems of social alienation, youth unrest and crime."
-- Piero Fassino

The forum, organised by United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) with the United Nations Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) and the municipality of Turin, sought to reduce inequality and injustice in urban settings and address the dynamics of security and crime preventions.

The challenge for the future is to take advantage of opportunities offered by urbanisation while reducing episodes of crime and violence that hinder sustainable development, particularly for the most vulnerable people: women, youth and marginalised groups.

“From 1960 to 1990, urbanisation was accompanied by a severe increase [in] crime and violence, which affected the majority of cities and towns in both the developed and the developing world,” explained Cecilia Andersson, human settlements officer of the Safer Cities Programme of UN-HABITAT, during her opening speech.

“This situation required change. It required the cities and towns themselves to take responsibility to deal with these issues,” she added.

Mayors and representatives of 18 municipalities around the world from Cape Town to Bangkok, from Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) to Seoul, discussed the biggest challenges they encountered and the best measures to take to address them.

Martin Xaba, head of the Safer Cities and I-Trump Department of Durban, South Africa, explained how the local municipality decided in 2000 to adopt the Safer Cities strategy.

“The strategy requires the implementation of both reactive and proactive approach,” Xaba explained. While adequate responses to crime are always needed, “prevention remains the most effective tool, and this is where community involvement becomes critical”.

Such tools, in the case of Durban, include campaigns for crime awareness and against the abuse of women and children, workshops on drug abuse, and the active participation of the community in ward safety committees.

It was “upon the request of African mayors, who were having an issue with regards to safety in their cities” that the programme Safer Cities began in Africa, Andersson explained to IPS, with Johannesburg, South Africa and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania as pilot cities. The programme has since gone global.

Meanwhile, local leaders say that exchanging ideas among cities does work. Antonio Frey, director of local security in Santiago del Chile, told IPS, “The experience of Cape Town, South Africa, is very interesting for us. They managed to recover public spaces, thanks to the involvement of citizens from marginalised areas.”

“This strategy has positive effects in the long run, because those people recover that space, and then take care [of] and manage it.”

Despite the substantial differences between cities in terms of crime rates and types of crimes, a key requirement to enhance safety and security is the decentralisation of policies from the national to local level.

When policies are not decentralised, improving circumstances becomes very difficult, as Bilal S. Hamad, mayor of Beirut, could attest during his speech at the plenary session.

In Beirut, a lack of decentralisation is hindering the municipality’s ability to intervene on crime and safety issues. “The central government has its hand in the affairs of the municipality,” Hamad lamented. The city is not in charge [of] a police force, and the central government put someone in the role of governor, “taking all the executive power in the city of Beirut”.

In another example, inadequate housing is a problem indirectly connected to crime, but “we don’t have full power [over] it, because it’s the central government which controls that”, insisted Hamad.

According to Andersson, apart from decentralisation, cooperation is also essential. “The best results come when all the various departments in a municipality [understand] that they have a role to play with regards to providing safety and security for the inhabitants of the city,” she told IPS.

Interestingly, crime and violence differ significantly from city to city, and developed and developing countries do not necessarily face separate types of crimes.

“In developing countries, the biggest challenge is always finding resources,” Andersson told IPS, particularly moving resources from national to local governments. Some problems, however, affect most cities, regardless of the country in which they are located. “Across borders, in all regions, the issue of women and girls’ safety…comes out quite clearly,” Andersson said.

This issue, by limiting the freedom of women and girls, prevents them from participating in and contributing to their communities. As Andersson clarified during the conference, “Communities where all citizens are empowered to participate in social, economic and political opportunities…are instrumental [in reducing] poverty.”

Informal settlers on prime land in Papua New Guinea’s capital, Port Moresby, are living under tarpaulins amid the debris of their homes after two attempted evictions to make way for a luxury waterfront development. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Apr 18 2013 (IPS)

Two of the world’s largest multilateral institutions have released new data linking greater urbanisation with higher levels of human development, and are announcing that they will place greater priority on issues of urbanisation in coming decades.

According the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), urban areas in the developing world look set to pull in a staggering 96 percent of the additional 1.4 billion people expected in those countries by 2030. According to some metrics, that could offer significant opportunities – if done correctly.

Unveiling a major joint annual report here on Wednesday, the two Washington-based institutions noted that more-urbanised countries have shown far higher strengthening of development indicators than have less-urbanised countries. This is particularly striking with regards to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the international development-related aims agreed to in 2000 and which are to be achieved by 2015.

“Countries with a degree of urbanization above 60 percent are expected to achieve 50 percent more MDGs than those with a degree of urbanization of 40 percent or less,” the new Global Monitoring Report 2013 (GMR) states. “In fact, virtually no country has graduated to a high-income status without urbanizing, and urbanization rates above 70 percent are typically found in high-income countries.”

The GMR report, now in its 10th year, offers an annual snapshot of global progress towards the MDGs. An accompanying brief suggests that significant progress has been made in reducing extreme poverty in recent decades, with those living on 1.25 dollars a day going from half the developing world in 1981 to 21 percent in 2010 – despite the population in those countries increasing by nearly 60 percent during that period.

A notable outlier in this data is sub-Saharan Africa, however, where levels of extreme poverty have doubled over the past three decades, to around 414 million. The World Bank recently unveiled a new goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030.

“The sharp increase in the number of poor people in Africa is a sad indictment of the fact that the needs of rich countries and elites have too often been pursued at the expense of the poorest,” Emma Seery, a spokesperson with Oxfam, a humanitarian group, told IPS in an e-mail.

“Accelerating progress towards the World Bank’s goal of ending extreme poverty means taking tough choices and tackling the vested interests that stand in the way of a fairer world.”

While the new GMR offers a far sunnier view of the international macroeconomic environment than it did last year, with head IMF economists suggesting that today’s situation is far more conducive to achieving the MDGs, the MDG “scorecard” Wednesday was rather gloomier.

“There’s really no time to be complacent,” Jos Verbeek, a World Bank economist and lead author of the GMR, told reporters at the report’s launch. “Current analysis shows that without a vast acceleration of progress, the world should expect that globally hardly any additional MDG will be attained.”

Yet Verbeek suggests that fast-growing levels of urbanisation could offer governments a key opportunity. Urbanisation and higher incomes have been found to go hand in hand, he points out, and urban areas have been found to be doing far better at attaining the MDGs than rural areas, particularly in rates of extreme poverty.

“One conclusion is that we should encourage urbanisation – not hinder it or try to slow it down – while another conclusion is we should facilitate mobility, particularly in those countries that have partly urbanised,” Verbeek notes.

“How do we promote urbanisation? … Better urban planning comes first, which will allow government and city officials to be in the driver’s seat, and not be pushed around by private financiers or donors, who often emphasise their own priorities, which are not always aligned with the country or the city.”

Rural-urban divide

At the same time, nearly three-quarters of the global poor continue to live in rural areas. Reflecting a broad consensus, both the bank and fund are clear that efforts need to be increased in coming years to help bridge the rural-urban divide.

“Providing high-quality health and education remains a huge challenge that is vital to reducing poverty wherever it occurs,” Oxfam’s Seery says.

“But for the rural majority of poor people, access to land and investment in smallholder agriculture are also crucial steps towards escaping the poverty trap. The World Bank’s call to end the scourge of extreme poverty is timely and requires tackling these obstacles head on.”

Further, while much of the correlation between development and urbanisation is because service provision is far more efficient when people live closely together, World Bank and IMF officials are clear that poorly planned urbanisation can also have the opposite effect – resulting in slums in which many inhabitants are deprived of both civic amenities and, at times, civil rights.

“Poets wax eloquent about rural settings and rustic life, but … it’s frightfully expensive to provide basic provisions to people in rural areas – ironically, poor countries are least able to serve people living in rural settings, even though most of the people in poor countries live in rural areas,” Kaushik Basu, the World Bank’s chief economist, told reporters Wednesday.

“The urban indicators for most of these targets are superior to the same indicators in the rural sector. At the same time, if you allow for completely unplanned development of the urban areas, what you’ll get is development of the slums, where there will be pockets in which the standard of living will be much worse.”

Basu warns that “unfettered urbanisation is [no] cure-all”. He also emphasises that urban planning is not an area in which market forces alone can deliver acceptable results, stating instead that this process needs “conscious effort” – clearly indicating an area in which the bank sees its technical support increasing in coming years.

Already, experts today estimate that almost a billion people live in slums, nearly two-thirds of which are thought to be in Asia – one of the world’s fastest-urbanising areas.

“To cope with urban growth, a coordinated package of essential infrastructure and services is needed,” the GMR states.

“Only by meeting essential needs related to transportation, housing, water and sanitation as well as education and healthcare can cities avoid becoming hubs of poverty and squalor.”

Though Vitoria-Gasteiz, capital of the Basque Country, was elected the European Green Capital of 2012 – an award presented by the European Union to promote and reward efforts to mitigate climate change – Spain still has a long way to go to earn the label of ‘sustainable’ for others cities around the country.

The air that the citizens of Vitoria-Gasteiz breathe is of the highest quality, according to the score given by the European Union, thanks to campaigns to increase bicycle use around the city and the promotion of a new bus network together with tram routes and new parking regulations.

In contrast, cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla or Bilbao have been consistently exceeding standard levels of pollution as a result of a lack of environmental planning and a long drought.

“The necessary ingredients of a sustainable city are social inclusion and environmental quality in a dense, compact and diverse area with (democratic) participation in decision making,” Luís Jiménez, director of the Observatory on Sustainability in Spain (OSE), told IPS.

“In the developed world, cities determine to a great extent (a country’s) consumption pattern of materials and energy as well as territory. (Urban areas) contribute 75 percent of the planet’s pollution and use 70 percent of energy consumed by mankind,” he added.

As economic, cultural and social centres, cities provoke critical internal and external environmental impacts that cause serious ripple effects for other – mostly rural – systems, which, in Spain, comprise 90 percent of the land.

Ignacio Santos, an environmental expert currently working as a technical assistant for the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), points out two key factors in measuring environmental advances or degeneration in Spanish cities: firstly, residents’ quality of life (which is tied to the quality of the urban environment) and secondly, an ‘ecological footprint’.

In terms of air quality, it is worth noting that approximately 87 percent of the Spanish population breathes ‘polluted air’, as defined by the World Health Organization.

This has resulted in 16,000 premature deaths annuallyand led to the proliferation of various respiratory diseases.

“In Spain, the process of industrialisation and urbanisation has degraded quality, particularly in urban centers. It is crucial to reinforce the public’s capacity for action against atmospheric pollution and to take decisive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with integrated health, environmental and climate change policies,” Jiménez stressed.

According to Luis González, a member of Ecologistas en Acción, the main reason behind air quality degeneration in the cities is increased traffic, which directly emits particles in suspension from precursors (carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides or methane) that make up tropospheric ozone.

Sadly, “Local authorities have just denied the problem or moved the measure stations. There are no programs aimed at reducing traffic and insufficient awareness of the use of different means of transport, such as the bicycle,” González told IPS.

The ‘ecological footprint’, a reliable methodology designed to measure human impact on the planet, essentially maps humans’ demand for natural resources and contrasts it against the Earth’s ecological capacity to regenerate those resources. According to the Ecological Footprint Atlas (2010), a publication from the Global Footprint Network, Spain has the 19th largest eco-footprint per person in a list of 153 countries.

Spain’s ecological footprint has grown by an annual average of 0.1 global hectares per person since 1995, according to the report Global Change Spain 2020/2050. By 2005 there had been an increase of 19 percent, which meant that the necessary ecological territory to produce resources and assimilate the residue produced by each Spanish person in 2005 was 6.4 global hectares per person.

“Therefore we are living beyond our means. If we want cities with quality of life and minimum impact, we have to ensure that our ecological footprint does not exceed our available biocapacity. Technological measures to improve efficiency in the use and production of resources are not enough to achieve that. The main challenge is to achieve a great change in current consumption habits,” Jiménez concluded.

Some experts believe it is necessary to rethink ‘urban metabolism’ as a means of reducing a country’s ecological footprint and improving air quality as well as other environmental aspects.

In the past few decades, territorial and urban planning based on unlimited and indiscriminate real- estate growth has been promoted.

This programme has been supported by a series of contradictory legislations: several regions’ urban regulations placed an upper limit on building densities, but in no case were these regulations enacted.

“It is important to have a clear idea of what kind of model of city we are talking about,” said Santos. “Sustainable cities are not those which are built with a lot of houses nor those full of big buildings and without green spaces,” he added.

“For example,” Santos told IPS, “Madrid’s metropolitan area is a model of a big city developed in an uncontrolled and dispersed way. New neighborhoods without an underground transport service are still being designed while there are a large number of empty houses in the city centre.”

An expansive city with a low building density and territorial dispersion in urban services needs more transport infrastructure, more energy consumption and takes up more land surface. All those factors affect the environment and increase greenhouse emissions, with a severe impact on air quality, climate change and acoustic pollution, among others – all of which affect the quality of life of citizens and other surrounding social and natural systems.

Also, a city without parks and green belts means a lack of trees to absorb pollution and reduce the impact of noise.

Dealing with all of these issues requires adapting the city to the limits of biocapacity, while aiming for sustainability.

“If we are in a relative situation of sustainability improvement, as a result of the economic crisis, this does not mean that a clear effort to change unsustainable growth (patterns) exists,” Jiménez stressed.

Current development trends in Spain are intrinsically incompatible with the planet on which we live, which has finite resources that are dwindling faster than at any other time in human history.

Stressing the urgency of the situation, Santos urged “not only need political will, but also scientific knowledge. To design and implement policies, it is necessary to have planners, decision makers and citizens with the carbon cycle constantly on their minds.”

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Each day after school, nine-year-old Nelly Wangui hurries home with a bundle of firewood balanced on her head. The paper bag in which she carries her schoolbooks sits precariously on top of the stack and every now and then she reaches out to ensure that her books have not fallen down.

Although Wangui’s story sounds typical of poor children in rural areas, she in fact lives in the country’s capital city, Nairobi. And her life is much like that of the thousands of other children in the sprawling Korogocho slum and others like it in this East African nation.

While children in urban areas are more likely to survive infancy and live beyond their fifth birthday since they enjoy better nutrition, health and education, compared to their rural counterparts, this is not true for children in urban slums.

In Korogocho alone government statistics estimate that 200,000 people live in crowded conditions, plagued by extreme poverty and an absence of basic services. Here, the lives of many children remain a continuous fight for survival.

“As experiences of childhood become increasingly urban, so are the experiences of extreme deprivation and a continuous fight for survival for children living in urban slums,” says Dr. Ken Onyango, a paediatrician in Nairobi who often volunteers his services to slum areas around the city.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report The State of the World’s Children 2012: Children in an Urban World, released on Feb. 28, an increasing number of children living in urban slums are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in the world.

As the world becomes increasingly urban with over half of its people living in urban areas, including more than a billion children, the urban experience is one of poverty and exclusion for many.

“When we think of poverty, the image that traditionally comes to mind is that of a child in a rural village,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake in a statement. “But today, an increasing number of children living in slums and shantytowns are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in the world, deprived of the most basic services and denied the right to thrive.”

According to the report, while cities offer many children the advantages of urban schools, clinics and playgrounds, the same cities the world over are also the settings for some of the greatest disparities in children’s health, education and opportunities. “About half the children in urban areas of sub-Saharan Africa are unregistered at birth,” and most of them are also not immunised, according to the report.

The report further shows that in areas where the population is high, immunisation levels are often low.

“Since slums are considered illegal, the government feels no obligation to ensure that slum dwellers have access to water and proper sanitation,” John Otieno, an urban real estate developer, explains.

“There is an absence of child-friendly initiatives in conceptualising urban infrastructure in Kenya. Space available for children to play is often grabbed by private developers,” he adds.

Globally, one out of three urban dwellers lives in slums, and in Africa the proportion is six out of 10.

The report states that the urban population is growing the fastest in Africa, followed by Asia. And while an increasing number of African children are growing up in urban areas, the proportion of children living in urban slums in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya is on the rise as well.

The report says: “Around two thirds of Nairobi lives in crowded informal settlements.” The city has an estimated population of 3.1 million people.

Wangui is part of this statistic. But hardships like hers are often concealed by national statistics that only report general averages.

“The lack of some is concealed by the excesses of others. In education for instance, East African countries are now implementing free primary education. Statistics show improved levels of enrolment but low enrolment in urban slums is often concealed,” says Dave Ndonga, a primary school teacher in Mukuru kwa Njenga, a slum in Nairobi.

The report states that in many African countries such as Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania, children in urban slums are least likely to attend school. However, countrywide average statistics in Tanzania show that the enrolment rate has doubled to about 97 percent.

“Children in slum areas drop out of school due to the additional costs of having to buy uniforms and even writing materials. But, there’s really little attention to the nature of education available to children in urban slums. Some classes have as many as 100 students per teacher,” explains Muigai Ngugi, a child’s rights activist in Nairobi.

He further says that these children are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol and engage in criminal activities at the onset of adolescence as a result of minimal supervision from adults.

And although many African countries have drastically reduced deaths of children under the age of five years, the rate is higher in slums.

This is because, according to UNICEF, women in urban slums are more likely to wean their children earlier than their rural counterparts, thereby exposing them to health risks, and possibly death, before their fifth birthday.

In Kenya, the infant mortality rate is 77 deaths per 1,000 live births. However, in urban slums in the country it is 151 deaths per 1,000 live births. The leading causes of these deaths are pneumonia and diarrhoea – both of which are preventable.

UNICEF urged governments to put children at the heart of urban planning and to extend and improve services for all. “Children’s well-being is determined in no small measure by their environment. Their particular needs and priorities must be incorporated into efforts to improve housing, infrastructure, safety and governance. It follows that the work of local government and urban planning must be carried out with explicit recognition of the rights of children and young people,” the report said.

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